With their CCS scheme failing, the Sask. Party have no plan

July 04, 2017

Despite the Sask. Party’s target date to reach 50 per cent renewable energy fast approaching, they have still not provided any details about how they plan to get there, beyond their spin about the problem-plagued and costly Carbon Capture and Storage project at Boundary Dam 3.

Last week, their indefensible claims about their CCS scheme were struck two more blows when a flagship project in the United States was scrapped and a damning report was released citing the Sask. Party’s CCS boondoggle as a key example of the technology not delivering.

“The Sask. Party’s $1.5 billion job-killing carbon capture tax has already forced higher and higher power rates on Saskatchewan families and small businesses,” said NDP Environment Critic Cathy Sproule. “Other jurisdictions are pulling the plug on these costly projects but the Sask. Party is stubbornly sticking with CCS and making Saskatchewan people pay the price. Worse, they won’t even commit to not expanding CCS to other units at Boundary Dam.”

After years of cost overruns and delays, the company that ran Mississippi’s Kemper County “Clean Coal” CCS project announced last week that they are abandoning it. At the same time, a new report, The Bottomless Pit: The Economics of Carbon Capture and Storage, written by an economist from the University of Edinburgh was published and argued that Boundary Dam is “simply an application of the wrong technology in the wrong circumstances.”

“The people of Saskatchewan are already paying the price for the Sask. Party’s mismanagement, scandal, and waste and the $1.5 billion original price tag combined with the ongoing costly problems with the CCS are costing us even more with power rates jumping four times in just two years,” Sproule said. “Instead of arrogantly ignoring the facts and pretending nothing is wrong, they need to come clean with how much more they’re willing to make Saskatchewan people pay for this discredited and dysfunctional scheme and what their plans are for the future.”